Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short story collections, and his articles on writing have appeared in Writer's Digest and Writer's Journal, among others. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University's Master of Fine Arts in Writing Popular Fiction program.

Visit him on the web at www.timwagonner.com

Please keep reading after the interview to find an early review of A Strange and Savage Garden, out from Samhain Publishing October 7th, 2014!

1. A Strange and Savage Garden is a novella that features Johnny Divine, a rather unique character from the mind of Kealan Patrick Burke. Did you enjoy working with your version of Divine in your own world? Were there any major challenges?Kealan created Johnny Divine as a character to tie together the various novellas that originally appeared in an anthology called Brimstone Turnpike which came out from CD Publications several years back. Kealan developed a description of the character and the old desert gas station where he would encounter the main character of each novella. The only instruction we were given was that Divine should give the character an object that would feature somehow in our stories. We were given the freedom to interpret Divine however we wished. He could be a force for good, for evil, or somewhere in between. I enjoyed coming up with my take on the character, and the only challenge was trying to make sure that he seemed an integral part of my story instead of something tacked on. Hopefully, I succeeded!2. Lauren is returning home after the death of her father and finding herself fighting for a sense of stability in the process. The reader ends up joining her in a sense, going back and forth between her sense of reality and the little shifts of consciousness, catching the little elements as we go. Were you happy with the way the book turned out? Did it stick to the original story formula you had in mind? I was happy with the novella, and I hope readers enjoy it. I like to write with an immersive point of view in order to involve readers as deeply in a story as I can. I also like to make a character’s psychological landscape as much a part of the story as what the character says and does. It helps create an atmosphere of strangeness and skewed reality, which is where true horror comes from. In terms of writing the story, it turned out the way I outlined it for the most part, but as usual, I made some changes as I wrote it, as improvements to the plot or new ideas occurred to me. An outline is just a guideline for a story – not a blueprint that must be followed exactly.3. Grandma Madelyn is a strong figure, equal parts firm resolve and manipulation. What inspired her?Without giving away any of the story details, Madelyn is the kind of character she is because of her unique abilities. Abilities like hers would be an outgrowth of a superhuman will and a pathological need to make things the way she wants – or maybe needs – them to be. So once I knew what her role in the story was, I was able to work backward and create a character with the sort of personality who could fulfill that role. 4. This is no ordinary town, were you surprised to see the story unfold as it did or did you plan it this way all along?Everything was planned, although some of the specifics I developed as I actually wrote the scenes. That’s how I usually write, and this novella was no different.5. Your writing is an interesting blend of dark fantasy and horror elements, often it’s very surreal and dreamlike. Did you always know it would have this tone or did you discover you voice over time? When I was in my twenties, I thought it might be interesting to blend horror and fantasy in my writing. I loved horror, but I thought too much of it wasn’t as imaginative as it could be, and I liked fantasy, but much of it followed the same kind of Tolkienesque story patterns, and it too, ultimately, wasn’t very imaginative. So I started working on blending what I found to be the most effective elements of both genres in my writing, and as the years went by, people began responding positively to my surreal dark fiction, so I figured I must’ve done something right. At this point in my career, I’m known for writing these kind of stories (that is, if I’m known for anything at all!).6. What other writing projects are due out in the coming year? Are there any particular ones you’re excited to see readers react to?I have a horror novella called The Last Mile coming out from DarkFuse in October. The basic premise is what would humans do to survive in a world where Lovecraft’s Old Ones returned and reclaimed the planet. Also in October, I have a tie-in novel based on the TV series Grimm coming out from Titan Books called Grimm: The Killing Time. In late November, my YA horror novel Dark Art will come out from Nightscape Press. It’s about a troubled teenager whose drawings come to life with devastating results.

﻿My Review of A Strange and Savage Garden: ﻿

Lauren is going back home to bury her father. After 11 years of living on her own in California its a tough trip and its only going to get tougher as she goes along. You see, when she left a piece of this place went with her in the form of awful nightmares, strange memories of something so awful she thought it was buried deep in her thoughts. Only now, with Grandma Madelyn in her life and memories of that past stirring, nothing truly seems as it appears to be.

I first discovered Tim Waggoner with his novel Like Death several years ago and I was very pleased with the dark and dreamlike quality of that novel. I'm happy to have had the pleasure of reading A Strange and Savage Garden and found that same sense of the unusual. Lauren is quite a lot more than she seems to be at first glance and the terrible past she's been running from is far more complex than she realizes. Having essentially run away at the age of 17 she's only come back to make her peace and, with luck, return to the life she created in California. The past is a powerful thing and the weight of her Grandma Madelyn's steady gaze often makes her doubt herself. The strange visions and memories only give that sense on instability more weight and soon she is questioning just what it is that really happened all of those years ago and why.

I enjoyed A Strange and Savage Garden because it's a great example of how Waggoner's voice is very much his own. We experience Lauren's life in little fits and starts, dreamlike interruptions coloring both her view and our own. We discover the world and its truths gradually until it all comes together in a very vivid conclusion that challenges many aspects of what we were told about Lauren's life and the identity of the people that surround her. Here we find some very strong characters with unusual outlooks, questions about the idea of self, some consideration of how our perception of the past affects us, and the dark fantasy and subtle horror elements I enjoy in Waggoner's work. This is a very enjoyable and surreal novella that was well worth the read!

This is a blog to announce I am now open to taking in some side editing at fair prices. I'm an editor at J Ellington Ashton Press and with that experience, the work I've been doing as an author, and some previous work as an SEO article writer before that, I have a proven record of quality work and a unique perspective on an author's needs.

My price will go by page count and at $1 per page that should average about $250 - 300 per novel for average length works. I may be open to negotiation on price, especially for some projects with greater length. I would prefer not to edit anything less than 10 pages and nothing longer than 600 so that I'm not distracted from my work at JEA and, of course, with my own writing. I would prefer to work with word documents because it's much easier to use that program's comments system to note changes and make notes on areas where some work is needed.

When I edit I look for proper grammar usage, solid plotting, engaging storytelling and areas where the author could use cutting to improve the flow. I don't have a specific preference on genre, but I do reserve the right to reject a project if I feel that I would not be the right editor for the work (conflict of interest or projects I find offensive due to topics like sexual abuse of minors utilized in a sexually titillating manner for example). I prefer to look at the work first and if I take it on, to receive half at the beginning of the assignment and the other half on completion. I take payments via Paypal.

If you would be interested in seeking my help with editing or have any questions please e-mail me at nightshade44637@gmail.com with the heading "Editing Inquiry" with your book title. Thanks.

I'm going to be polishing Water Like Crimson Sorrow some more today, which means you'll be seeing it out on the market in another month or two. For fans of ELBF when it was a self-titled book, this will be the 2nd half of that book and will feature it's very own well-deserved cover. Once that's out, I will be submitting book 3 (which will be the first new book for you folks that read the first ELBF before we split it) Cool Green Waters. CGW features quite a bit more about three characters that had less focus in the first book. Mateo, Zero and Michael become far more interesting and detailed here and we also get a bit more about Raven and Katja, of course! Expect a lot of action, suspense, dark happenings and some elements that are a little more on the sexy side of things (Mateo happens to run an S/M club) as well.

I have a wee bit of book four to work with too, but it will be a bit before it's ready. That book, titled Hollow Black Corners of the Soul will hopefully be completed in the next year or two, so don't worry! I also have a few ideas in mind for book five which also features some surprising return characters. By the way we'll be calling this series Shades of Midnight, rather apt considering each title features a color, eh?

I will have a short in the JEA horror collection Rejected for Content and will again be taking part in a collaborative 666 project, this one, called Lycanthroship, will feature werewolves and is set shortly after WWII. Both of these books should be working toward completion and are hoped to be out this Fall.

Apocrypha is still in the works, with Robert Lyons﻿ working on his, I might just put together a few more for that too. I also have a couple of other books to work on finishing up like Other Dangers, Jodie, one that's barely developed called The Farm and another which will have dark, posssibly YA fantasy themes and doesn't have a title yet. Long story short there will be a great deal more to expect in the coming years and I do hope you'll enjoy them all as they do. In the meantime, please look into my 3 latest releases below:

Bio:Daniel Durrant is a new author writing mainly in the horror and science fiction genres. His short stories have been published in several anthologies in the UK and USA. Daniel lives on the Norfolk coast in England, where he enjoys reading, dog walking, and planning the apocalypse. This is his first novel.The Steampunk novella “Climate Change” has also recently gone into print.

1. Where did the idea for the story come from?There are so many influences it would be tough to list them here! After some success with short stories and a novella, I knew I wanted to write a novel, but had no idea what the subject should be. Around that time I was reading some great zombie fiction, and realised I’d love to try that. Since the genre looked pretty busy, I wanted to write something that would (hopefully) stand out. With that in mind, I gave myself two rules. First, I would try fresh ideas and settings that would break away from the norm. Second, I would work hard to make the concept as realistic as possible. Every aspect of the novel, from the structure to the plot and the virus itself, stems from those two rules.2. What made me chose North Korea – was the research hard?The setting was actually one of the first things I decided on. Since no viruses in nature possess the characteristics I required, the “Preta” virus had to be an engineered creation. So the question became: who would have the means and motive to be conducting such dangerous research? I was pondering that when North Korea hit the news for conducting missile tests. It seemed perfect. I found the research fascinating, so much so that I got distracted by it. As ever, Wikipedia was an important resource. Beyond that, military and international security websites were invaluable. Some of the best information came from sites detailing human rights atrocities – sadly, some aspects of the story are close to factual. I ended up reading far more than I needed to, but hopefully I have done the setting justice. 3. Why is it called the Preta Pathogen – what makes it different from other viruses? “Preta” is the most common name for the “hungry ghost” of Asian folklore. Traditionally, Eastern religions assert that after death, the spirit of a greedy or selfish person is condemned to wander the Earth, forever hungry. In some versions, the ghost craves human flesh. It seemed a good fit - superstitious North Koreans might blame zombie-style attacks on the supernatural. So the folklore named both my creatures and the virus – which of course, gives the novel it’s title. The nature of the “Preta” virus itself lies right at the heart of the novel. Whilst the virus does spread via bites, it is not your classic zombie pathogen. Those infected can survive for some time before succumbing to the effects. Even worse, the virus can spread via other means, meaning asymptomatic carriers are constantly spreading the infection (I won’t spoil the plot by revealing how). In the world of the “Preta Pathogen” checking your fellow survivors for bites is not enough – they might be carriers anyway.4. Two – sides – why write about Ji Tae and Ben?Strangely, it wasn’t the original plan – Ji Tae’s point of view was meant to last only until the two main arcs of the story converged. However, once Ji Tae was established, I felt she was too strong a character to side-line. You would expect someone that has lived under a military dictatorship to have a very different view of the world; perhaps even a different sense of right and wrong. I found the contrasting perspectives of Ben and Ji Tae a useful way to explore certain ideas. The setting is an important part of the novel, and I found that was best illustrated from Ji Tae’s point of view. Also, there is room for Ji Tae to be a bit of an anti-hero; she has done some very bad things. That made her particularly enjoyable to write. 5. Was it difficult to match up the intrigue, setting etc?I’d aimed to make the novel more expansive than is perhaps normal in the genre, so having chosen an interesting setting, it seemed rather wasteful not to make use of it. I felt the paranoid nature of the North Korean state made for a marvellous backdrop. So whilst the novel is certainly horror, it’s told in more of a thriller style, and incorporates a story line that reflects the real tensions on the Korean peninsula. As an extension of that, I wanted to anchor the story in the real world, which is illustrated via the regular BBC World News excerpts. That element also created a contrast I really liked - the main characters know exactly what is happening locally, but remain unaware of the greater effects. Conversely, the outside world is seeing all of the effects, but is completely unaware of the cause. 6. What makes it different?If I’ve done my job properly, “The Preta Pathogen” should feel different from the genre norm for several reasons, but I would say realism is the most important one. All the way through the research and writing, my mantra was, “is this credible?” Although my virus is (thankfully) fictional, the key elements are grounded in real science. Likewise, I wanted there to be a solid reason for everything that happens – a key aim was that the events of the novel should feel like something you might see unfolding on the news. Before writing “The Preta Pathogen” I read (and loved) many zombie novels, but often wondered why most shied away from really explaining the virus, or detailing precisely how it has spread across the globe. Having now done so, I know why - it is extremely hard to write a believable scenario! But I got immense satisfaction from the process, and I hope readers will really enjoy that aspect. 7. Could it really happen?Sorry to disappoint any zombie preppers out there, but no, it couldn’t. I did a huge amount of research on the medical / genetic / viral aspects of the novel in order to ma As a result, I’m confident that I’ve pushed a zombie-esque virus closer to plausibility than ever, but no, it still requires a considerable amount of scientific and mathematical “adjustment” in order to work. I would say let’s be happy to suspend disbelief and enjoy it for what I hope it is: a good story. On the other hand, any good zombie story should make you want to keep a blunt instrument handy; it’s part of the appeal. So if a reader feels compelled to stock up on MRE’s and .223 NATO rounds, that’s up to them.8. What’s in the works?I am currently writing the sequel, which picks up the story a few months after the events of “The Preta Pathogen” (although the novel can be read on a standalone basis, it was always intended as the first part of a trilogy). In the sequel, “Preta” outbreaks have hit several countries, and governments across the globe are struggling to contain the virus. Even worse, Ben and his fellow survivors find that not everyone wants to stop it.